


Like Brothers

by KlayterMcCabe



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5835589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KlayterMcCabe/pseuds/KlayterMcCabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the plot of the new Star Wars was basically A Series of Unlikely Events Happening Very Quickly, let's pretend that Finn woke up and the main trio got to hang out for like a week before Rey took off in search of Luke. They're heroes of the Resistance, and they barely know each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Brothers

The three of them gather in the private room Finn's been given in the hospital barracks, which is more of a closet than anything else. Poe shows up with a stack of six packs and a cafeteria feast, so they drink too much beer and eat too much food—for Rey and Finn both, it's been a long time since they enjoyed anything better than protein packs and MREs—and they congratulate themselves and each other on being heroes of the Resistance. The base is in a twilight mood caught between mourning and merriment, and they make a conscious choice: if they win this war, there will be whole lifetimes left to mourn. If they lose, better to have spent what time they had laughing.

Tipsy and warm and surrounded by allies, it's hard to believe that "losing" is real.

But Finn and Rey move slowly, and Finn stops at one beer because the painkillers have frazzled him enough, and they're all too old to believe in the invincibility of their own bodies.

Once they've told Poe the story of their escape from Jakku and he reciprocates, it becomes obvious they are almost strangers, and that they have little to say to each other.

"I'm sorry," Rey says, to break the silence. "I've just lived alone for so long... I'm not used to finding things to say to people."

"Don't be sorry!" says Poe. "I didn't mean to make either of you feel like you should have to carry the conversation. Really, if that burden's anyone's, it should fall to me." He flashes them both a dashing smile, and his warmth and unabashed handsomeness make Rey blush and look away.

"Unless they gave elocution classes in the Stormtrooper corps," Poe continues. "I suppose I shouldn't make any assumptions."

Finn's lip curls in half a smile. "That they did not. Shit, you're lucky I even know what 'elocution' means. All the things they told us to watch out for with resistance fighters, and your fancy vocabularies didn't even make the list."

"What... what was it like?" asks Rey.

Finn shrugs. "Which part?"

And Rey realizes she doesn't know how to answer. _Working for the greatest evil in the galaxy_ is closest to what she wants to know, but "gauche" isn't big enough to cover such a question.

"Being surrounded by other people all the time," she says instead. "Other soldiers."

Finn shrugs again. "Poe could answer that question too, I guess. It's fine. Sometimes it's nice, sometimes it's the world's biggest pain in the ass. Sometimes it's... rough." He stares past them. "Those guys were my whole life," he says at last. "I grew up with them, and now I'll never see them again. Some of them are already dead."

In the ensuing silence, Rey starts apologizing again.

"I'm so sorry," she says. "I didn't mean to kill the mood..."

As she trails off, they can hear laughter and footsteps down the hall.

"Stop apologizing," says Finn lightly. "I killed the mood. You're not doing anything wrong." He turns to Poe. "For a guy who _just said_ he'd carry the conversation, you sure are quiet."

"What it's like living with soldiers..." Poe purses his lips and thinks about it for a moment. "A lot like this, I guess. People you fight with, they're like brothers. You live together and rag on each other and drink cheap beer together and try to save each others' lives." He gestures broadly with his beer, taking in the three of them and most of the empty room at large, and the gesture knocks him slightly off balance. "We're all brothers now." All three of them realize at the same time that Poe has had almost twice as much to drink as Rey.

Rey smiles. "I've never thought of myself as someone's brother before. It sounds nice."

"It _is_ nice!" Poe throws up his arms, spilling beer, and this time Finn and Rey laugh at his deliberate clowning.

"What was it like on Jakku?" Poe asks.

"Oh," says Rey, and for a long moment stops there. It's hard to think of something to say that strikes a balance between flippant and raw. "The desert is so vast," she says finally. "Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you're human." And when that sounds too sad, she rushes forward. "The most beautiful thing I've ever seen is the sunrise after a sandstorm, when you've spent all night curled up as tightly as you can and you still have to spit out sand, and the wind is so loud and strong that it feels like the end of the world. And after the storm finally dies, the silence in the darkness feels unnatural. So the brilliant oranges and reds of the sunrise putting color back into the world... Those moments made me feel human, even though really there was nothing human about them."

"You're like a desert spirit," says Poe, and if there's a tone of teasing in his voice, it's possible there's also a tone of awe. "What about you, Finn? What made you feel human in the Stormtrooper corps?"

Finn grins apologetically, trying to take the sting out of his words. "I'm gonna kill the mood again, but if you feel 'too human' in the Stormtrooper corps, they send you to reconditioning, and they try to fix it. So that wasn't really something I sought out."

Poe shakes his head. "Man, you sure you don't want another drink? Because like everything you say is the saddest thing I've ever heard."

"When you put it that way, maybe I'll have one more after all." Finn holds his hand out, and Poe crosses the room and comes back with three more bottles. He and Finn laugh with surprise when Rey pops the cap off hers with her teeth.

"I'll get yours, too," she offers, but Poe pulls a bottle opener out of his pocket and does them himself.

"Just watching you do that," he says, licking his teeth, "makes my mouth hurt."

"What about you?" Rey asks. "How did you grow up?"

"In a nice house, on a nice planet, with two parents who loved me." Poe shrugs, looking a little embarrassed. "My mother was a pilot, too, which is why I wanted to fly in the first place."

"Heroism as a family legacy," says Finn, reaching over to ruffle Poe's hair. "You douchebag!"

"I didn't say my mom was a hero!"

"Was she?" Rey asks.

Poe reddens but smiles. "Well, yes. She flew for the rebellion in her day."

"Families are bizarre," says Finn, shaking his head. "Everyone who's got one turns out weird. Look at Kylo Ren."

Rey rolls her eyes. "I don't think _Kylo Ren_ is a good example of what having a family does to a person."

"Well he was the most fucked-up person on Starkiller Base, and one of the only people there who wasn't kidnapped or sold at birth to join the Stormtrooper corps, so, uh, I feel pretty comfortable with my assessment."

"Did you know him well?" Rey asks. "Kylo Ren?"

Finn sips his beer. "Smart Stormtroopers kept their distance—that guy could throw a temper tantrum that ended in a murder. I wasn't really on a first-name basis with any of the higher-ups, what with not having a first name until pretty recently and all." He shoots Poe a grin.

"You didn't have a _name_?" Rey asks.

"Not 'til Poe gave me one. 'Finn' sounds pretty good, right?"

"It does," say Rey and Poe together, and Finn laughs.

"Now you're just congratulating yourself, Poe," says Finn. He turns to Rey. "See what I mean about this guy? Total douchebag."

"Nah," Poe waves this away. "Kylo Ren's a total douchebag. That guy made me cry tears of blood. Not a poetic expression, by the way, I was literally crying _blood_. I'm more of a loveable scoundrel by comparison."

"Oh, you're very loveable," says Rey, and what sounded jokey and condescending in her head comes out sincerely enough that Finn whoops with laughter. "You're _both_ loveable," she adds, and this shuts Finn up.

"I guess you're not a douchebag," Finn concedes. "As long as the standard is set by Kylo Ren. You should've seen him in the duel when I was kicking his ass. Kept punching his own wound, like the world's scariest monkey."

"I thought that was when he was the most human," says Rey quietly.

"Sure, sure. He looked human to you because you guys were sword fighting in the snow; talk to me again after he straps you down to a table and climbs inside your mind." And for the first time Poe's bright tone fails him, and he sounds like a soldier talking about a war and not a man at the pub with friends.

"He did do that," says Rey. "And I still thought he was a human."

Both men are quiet.

"When he was hitting himself," said Rey. "To stay strong and angry enough to fight. That's what he looks like inside all the time, I think. I was only glimpsing."

"Total douchebag," says Finn, but both the heat and the mirth have gone out of the phrase. "We'll have to fight him again, eventually."

" _We_ won't," says Poe, too quickly. "That's the sort of thing we're getting Luke Skywalker for."

"I'd fight him again," says Rey. "I hope to, actually."

"Yeah, me too. Could totally use a rematch." Finn grins, all teeth, and Poe rolls his eyes.

"Well, great, now peer pressure says I have to want to fight him, too. But I still say: let Jedi take care of Jedi business. We can manage, you know, the entire rest of the war."

"War _is_ Jedi business," says Rey, and the confidence in her words surprises her. "The Jedi might not believe it, but I do. They're a warrior order, and Luke Skywalker is going to teach me what to do."

In another minute, Poe is going to stand up and get them all another beer, and then they'll keep talking and laughing late into the night. But for a moment they pause in silence, all three of them looking into Rey's future, made excited and afraid by what they see.


End file.
